The lake level is 599.82 or right at summer pool. Water temps have bounced up to 85 earlier this past week with the heat and now dropped back to 80. This has put the crappie in summer locations which mean channel banks, points on main lake and mouths of coves. All on timber weather it is lying down or vertical. I am starting to see a thermocline on my Livescope at about 18-20ft. This will put the crappie in very predictable areas.

I am using a slip bobber and minnow and my Livescope tells me what depth the crappie are holding on a particular branch. For the most part we are fishing 14-18ft. down in deeper water. Moving often is the key to getting limits. I tell clients a tree with four over ten is a good stop. You can catch crappie just shy of ten inches all day meaning we are going through about fifteen dozen minnows a day or more. If you don’t have one over ten in the first five fish then leave. You watch Livescope enough and you know what a bigger fish looks like and you don’t stop at the nursery.

For the white bass I am using ledges on points with wind blowing into them. I chase the whites with my Livescope meaning I am looking for a school on the bottom get on them and catch as many as I can before moving on to the next small school. Once I find them we can put fifty in the boat in a half hour. (Very Fun). I am using a 5/8oz. Bomber Slab spoon in either white or chartreuse and then go up the line a foot and tie on a 1/32oz. white hair jig. We are using twenty pound braid and it takes it to land two whites in the 1/1/2 pound range. Swinging in two about breaks the rod and quite the fight.

We make short casts with the spoon allow it to go to the bottom then pop your rod and follow it back to the bottom. The whites will nail it and it won’t go back to the bottom. Then you found them and quickly get twenty or so before they move.

My guide trips lately have been crappie fish until noon then switch over to white bass for a couple of hours. This has been completely filling my cooler or about 90-100 fish. I know plenty to clean but that is my summer and always has been.

If you want in on this give me a call at 217-840-1221 or go to my availability list on my website at LakeShelbyvilleGuide.com

Don’t forget I still have 5 openings left for Kentucky Lake November 7-11

Steve Welch
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